The places in our personality where we tend to deviate from love are not out faults, but our wounds. God doesn't want to punish us, but to heal us. And that is how He wishes us to view the wounds in other people.

It's funny, I see Wendy Kaminer herself as a kind of guru - a guru of the fashionably cynical set. Yet she uses the term "guru" to minimize my career, to marginalize my thoughts and to trivialize my work, as well as those of others.

Enlightenment is the key to everything, and it is the key to intimacy, because it is the goal of true authenticity.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

There is no such thing as a faithless person; we either have faith in the power of love, or faith in the power of fear. For faith is an aspect of consciousness. Have faith in love, and fear will lose its power over you. Have faith in forgiveness, and your self-hatred will fall away. Have faith in miracles, and they will come to you.

Every day can be like Christmas in its love and its peace if our hearts open up and make room for love. The holy child is waiting to be born in every instant, not just once a year.

Rather than accepting that we are the loving beings that He created, we have arrogantly thought that we could create ourselves, and then create God. Because we are angry and judgmental, we have projected those characteristics onto Him. We have made up a God in our image. But God remains who He is and always has been: the energy, the thought of unconditional love.